Permission to live on-site

[Tom]

Morning ladies and gents, does any one know if applying for permission to live on-site forms part of a planning application, or if it is a separate application in itself?

Thanks all

[ProDave]

Normally part of the same application. The normal procedure here is apply for permanent permission for the house and temporary PP for a static caravan all on the same application.

[Tom]

Excellent, thanks both

[scottishjohn]

on  the same subject of temporary residence 

 

is there a time limit -

[ToughButterCup]

From my direct experience - to add a little to what @Sensus  and @scottishjohn say , our next door neighbour simply emailed the relevant planning officer - permission was given by email in the terms already outlined .

 

4 (maybe 5 ?) years later, because the resident continued to remain on site even after a failed Planning Appeal, the Enforcement Officer finally served Notice to Quit (maybe the wrong term) . The resident now has a further 6 months to comply with the order. 

 

As @Sensus points out: this is a much mis-understood area of Planning practice - more honoured in the breach, I think. 

The take-away here is, if you can get permission via a simple email exchange, do so.

[ToughButterCup]

51 minutes ago, Sensus said:

The recent court of appeal judgement that I referred to above means that you can now quite definitely no longer do so (legally).

You might get lucky and find an LPA or individual Planning Officer who has yet to absorb the implications of that judgement, but I wouldn't rely on it.

 

Exactly. But if you don't try the informal route, then you won't ....

[Mally]

@Sensus  You have a fantastic insight. Can you elaborate how the rules may apply to a motorhome which may be parked on a hardstanding and driven off site regularly.

[Big Jimbo]

Don't all shout at me. There is another way, Live in your caravan/ mobile home on site. If/when you get a neighbour reporting you to the council, you might eventually get a guy wearing a woolly tie come to visit you (planning enforcement) Tell him very little, and don't let him on site. Tell him that you neither confirm, or deny that you are living on site. Then tell him to bugger off. If the neighbours continue to moan about you living on site the woolly tie geezer, might pop back after a month or so. Tell him to bugger off again. You might then get an enforcement notice. It will normally give you a couple of months to clear off site and take your caravan with you. Wait untill the two months is almost up, and then put in for an appeal against the enforcement notice. That will take about another 10 months or so, and when you lose the appeal the council will write to you several times over a period of a few months, and eventually they will write to tell you that they will take direct action to remove and bill you for the cost. During the passage of time, you will be finished your house to the point where you will have got sick of living in your caravan, and will be living in your house. Either get rid of the mobile, or write and advised the woolly tie fella that you are not living in your caravan, and that it will be staying parked on your land till your next holiday...... Bye bye council.

[Big Jimbo]

P.S. Do i hate councils. Yes. Do i think that most people who work for them are tossers . Yes. The above won't cost you a penny.

[oldkettle]

What happens if I already have a house for which I have planning to extend? I want to build a rather large gym and live in it during the build. I know I can build it under PD rights, but do I need a permission to reside in it temporarily (assuming no proper kitchen but possibly internal WC/shower)? 

[Big Jimbo]

i have had several conversation with the enforcement teams on various projects over the years. If you do let him onto your land. (I never have, and have never had the old bill turn up with them) then they have no right whatsoever, to force entry, into your locked caravan/ mobile home to see if you are actually living in it. I would also ask them to sign a disclaimer that they accept responsibility for any accidents that may occur while they are on my land including my very hard to control large dog taking chunks out of them. The old bill won't enter my land either unless they suspect that a crime is, or has been committed. I'm standing at the gate, having a nice friendly chat. No breach of the peace here fella. You want to come in. Go and see the magistrate, and get yourself a warrant. Bye Bye. Remember, you get bullied, because you allow yourself to be bullied.

[Big Jimbo]

Sensus. Sometimes you do just because you can. When we give away every bit of power we have left, we become sheep. I would never use the council's building control, always a private company. These days you would be hard pressed to find a council that has not farmed it out to a private company.

[ProDave]

+1.  It is VERY common for self builders to live on site in a caravan up here. There seems to be no problem getting temporary PP for that. So why would you not bother especially when it costs you nothing other than drawing a rectangle on the site layout saying "temporary static caravan"

 

It will however be interesting to see how the self builder not far from me gets on living in the Yurt he erected over a year ago and no sign of any building work yet.

[joth]

OP doesn't state explicitly but assumption here this is for a new build.

If it's a renovation, presumably the requirement for PP for a temporary caravan is even lower as it can then be an outbuilding ancillary to the enjoyment of the existing dwelling (or somesuch thing)?

 

If it's a motorhome that moves periodically, rather than static caravan, feel this would be even easier to justify

 

[joe90]

With my build the building inspector and enforcement officer were great, it was just the b****y planners that could not organise a piss up in a brewery, and got told so by the Secretary of State appeal officer!. I had a static van on site (replacement new build) and when they tried to make me pay council tax I informed them it was purely for builders facilities (but I was staying on site during the week and back to our other house fir weekends).

[Stewpot]

Just to add my couple of penny's worth - I found a leaflet from Wyre Forrest Council addressing the issue of caravans on site. The leaflet is AL14_Caravans - A Planning Guide to Caravans.

The guidance it contains is presumably applicable elsewhere.

 

It contains this:

"Building and Engineering Sites.
Land may be used as a caravan site to accommodate people taking part in authorised building or engineering work on the same or adjoining land. This covers workers camps on large scale projects, like bridges, roads or dams, as well as small scale building projects, like self build housing. The caravans shall only be used to house workers and not workers’ families. The caravan(s) must be removed immediately once the building or engineering work is finished."

 

The leaflet is undated, and I can't remember when I downloaded it (maybe 5 years ago), so perhaps the law has changed. But if not, this would seem to cover the lone builder.

[joe90]

37 minutes ago, Stewpot said:

The caravan(s) must be removed immediately once the building or engineering work is finished."

 

I would argue that point, caravans are allowed on a residential site and can be used for accommodation as long as it’s not self contained (that means you must come into the house for bathroom facilities or cooking etc) I found this on a caravan website and the info came from a legal beagle.

 

see https://www.inbrief.co.uk/land-law/planning-permission-caravan/

Edited December 9, 2019 by joe90

[redtop]

On 20/11/2019 at 19:22, Sensus said:

 

Read sections 196A, 196B and 196C of the Towns and Country Planning Act 1990.

 

They very much do have the right, under appropriate circumstances, to force entry into your locked caravan/mobile home to see if you are actually living in it.

 

If you are not present, they have an obligation (under S.196C(1)(c)) to leave the land as effectively secured against trespassers as when they found it. You also have the right of compensation if any damage is caused as a result of their access to either land or chattels (a caravan counts as a chattel), but they absolutely and categorically do have the right of access: it's there in black and white in the TCPA.

 

 

Section 196(c)(2) says that wilfully obstructing a person in exercise of their right of entry is committing an offence.

 

The enforcement officer has the right to take with him (or her) 'any other such persons as may be necessary', and will routinely call in the police for support if they have been denied access and/or threatened, for example, with large dogs.

 

 

Yes, it never ceases to astonish me how many people are bloody-minded enough to cut off their own nose to spite their face!

 

Similarly, it constantly amuses me the lengths that people will go to, to avoid PP by using every wrinkle available to them (and massively compromised design), to do work under PD instead of paying a couple of hundred quid to get a householder planning permission.

 

Most of the time, LPA's will have no problem whatsoever in giving you permission to live in a caravan on site for the duration of a self build, if you ask for it as part of the original consent.

 

But if you feel the particular need to set yourself up for a protracted, costly and stressful battle with the authorities "because you can", then I'm certainly not going to dissuade you. On the contrary... we'll be delighted to represent you for an only modestly exorbitant hourly rate when the paperwork hits the fan.

 

You're no relation to Albert Dryden, are you?

OK, sounds right and I havnt gone down this route, no need as renting locally.  But if I read it right they have to give 24 hours notice to enter a dwelling house and, if you have put temp beds away, etc and claim its site welfare facilities... Yes of course they will get you in the end but in the meantime you will have had use of it for months. I don't condone breaking the law but I also hate the fact that the council have such a broad right.  In my previous house we put up a garden house (posh shed, very posh tbh) and our son used to kip in it when visiting and indeed lived in it for 3 months for a while.  No-one complained but if they had and the council had turned up at the door to my house wanting to inspect my house and garden I would automatically say no; let them go through the courts which they are legally entitled to do.

[Ed Davies]

2 hours ago, joe90 said:

I would argue that point, caravans are allowed on a residential site …

 

But if the house isn't complete [¹] it's not a residential site. Same sort of thing as the residential PD rights not applying until complete.

 

[¹] whatever “complete” means: a) BC completion certificate, b) you're living in it, c) for VAT reclaim purposes, or d) for PD purposes. Could those all be different from each other for a single house?

[joe90]

2 hours ago, joe90 said:

The caravan(s) must be removed immediately once the building or engineering work is finished."

 

@Ed Davies I was quoting the above about the caravan remaining after completion only. As per my earlier post, I didn’t ask for permission to put my caravan on site as the original bungalow existed and after it was demolished I told the council it was my builders facilities (tho I did stay In it ?).

[Ed Davies]

11 minutes ago, joe90 said:

I was quoting the above about the caravan remaining after completion only.

 

Ah, OK.

[Markblox]

When applying for permission to live in a caravan on site during the build are the rules different for an AONB?

[Stewpot]

Also, what about council tax?

 

Do you pay CT on

1) a caravan that has temporary PP as residential accommodation

2) a caravan sited to provide temporary accommodation for workers on building or engineering sites (as per my post above)?

 

Further to my previous post - there no longer seems to be a link to download the leaflet I referred to, but there is now a web page      

(scroll down to near the bottom to find the paragraph referred to).

[epsilonGreedy]

2 minutes ago, Stewpot said:

Do you pay CT on

1) a caravan that has temporary PP as residential accommodation

 

 

I registered to pay and was rated as Band A.

 

Not sure about workers accommodation, I assume there is some principal residence test.

 

My local council keeps an eye on new builds and once the windows go in they will levy the full rate of the main house within 3 to 5 months. 

[PeterW]

11 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

My local council keeps an eye on new builds and once the windows go in they will levy the full rate of the main house within 3 to 5 months. 

So they legally can’t do this - and there is case law to stop them. @Jeremy Harris can advise the exact bit, but it relates to a property not meeting the requirement of being a rateable hereditament  if it has no potable water supply. 
 

Connect the water last to the house and it cannot be rated until that is done and Council Tax cannot be charged.